will come back to bite them very soon
Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions
301–310 of 419 posts
Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions
#302Are they gatekeeping to protect against AI "slop" or are they gatekeeping to protect an inefficient and non-scalable review process against velocity? I've seen policies like this in various places and they do not generally seem to be based quantitative measures of code functionality, security, and efficiency. There are other approaches to take to deal with large numbers of incoming PRs: improved CI, AI-readable stand…
In my experience success in a project isn't about the amount of code that can be produced, it's more about the thoughtfulness behind features and fixes. A lot of the work going into reviewing pull requests is understanding it in the context of the project's broader goals. This gets a lot harder when there is a giant wall of text that the pull requester doesn't understand and can't really discuss outside of asking AI…
Part of this is an argument for size limits on PRs.
Another part is "how do we communicate project goals and ideals and standards?" The answer to that, I'd argue, is not simple, and will inherently run into scale issues. It's something that needs to be tackled as you move from a bespoke craft project to an industrial project.
Now, maybe you never move. It's okay and good for hobby projects to exist. But let's be clear about the choice there.
Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think drugs are actually a great analogy. An initial feeling of "oh my god I have superhuman capabilities" followed by a hangover of "ohno I have created a mess". Especially with AI sycophancy where it's like "Great idea!" all the time. (I am well aware most my ideas are not great, thanks). Honestly, even the way people talk about like vibe coding on their phones while they're with their kids or something, it almos…
> An initial feeling of "oh my god I have superhuman capabilities" followed by a hangover of "ohno I have created a mess". Continuing the analogy: if this happens, then you are using the wrong drugs or you are using the drugs wrong. It's not like there's an axiom "you can't enhance your performance without detrimental side-effects."
What about "what goes up, must come down"?
Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions
#304A point of wild speculation. This is likely to be the slow decline of Godot. As someone with 2 years of Godot experience (which seems like a lot given their lifespan), the underlying infra isn't strong enough to ward off the many competitors that will embrace AI at the heart of the engine. Ironically, the best engine right now for AI-assisted coding is Godot! It has plain text scene files, and Opus does a half decent…
You're missing that an AI ban is actually just a poor quality AI ban. No one can tell if you used AI in a quality way and write the description in quality English. All this ban does is filter out the worst slop that would never have worked. People can and will still submit quality PRs that used AI, but no one will know it used AI, because the author was conscientious.
Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But they'll both be beaten by people using AI intelligently to generate code, but not letting it drive everything. I mean, this remains to be seen. Is this actually much faster or better than coding by hand? (Not a facetious question: it's one I grapple with all the time)
I'd put my estimates at 3x speed improvements. The amount of infra required upfront? 5x one time cost. These are estimates from Godot mobile app work. We have been trying out: no reviews under specific file sizes, except at design bottlenecks or large refactors. Number of PRs is probably up 3x with maybe 20% increase in regressions? Number of tests in our CI is up 500% (again, approximate), but this is absolutely req…
Hearing about a Godot mobile app is hilarious to me. If there was ever a signal that Godot is not a serious tool to create releasable games, but rather a toy for beginners to mess around with, spending a bunch of resources on porting the engine to phones is it. Wowza
Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions
#306[flagged]
Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions
#307A point of wild speculation. This is likely to be the slow decline of Godot. As someone with 2 years of Godot experience (which seems like a lot given their lifespan), the underlying infra isn't strong enough to ward off the many competitors that will embrace AI at the heart of the engine. Ironically, the best engine right now for AI-assisted coding is Godot! It has plain text scene files, and Opus does a half decent…
>As someone with 2 years of Godot experience (which seems like a lot given their lifespan), the underlying infra isn't strong enough to ward off the many competitors that will embrace AI at the heart of the engine. Like who? Unity/Unreal? Those are completely different engines for a different audience. IMO, Godot has a unique market space and no real peers. I think this was a wise decision that only adds to their bra…
Monogame, Wicked, Defold, Gamemaker, Stride, Heaps, just off the top of my head
Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
But now with AI, this should be "easier" for some definition of easy. In the sense that in the past, this might have taken 15 minutes to write, now with AI, this can take 5 minutes to write by first getting AI to produce a summary and then using human judgement to make it better. So, it's a good idea now to actually demand the dream.
If people knew how to get AI to write terse, focused summaries, sure, that might help. I haven't seen many that do (well, ignoring the toupee fallacy). Though the most important aspect is that we need to know the motivation and thought process, and all AI can do is fabricate a 'plausible' one.
I have spent many years reviewing and editing design and product documentation from more Jr engineers and product managers.
It was a constant struggle to get them to be concise, one I mostly lost.
Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions
#309A point of wild speculation. This is likely to be the slow decline of Godot. As someone with 2 years of Godot experience (which seems like a lot given their lifespan), the underlying infra isn't strong enough to ward off the many competitors that will embrace AI at the heart of the engine. Ironically, the best engine right now for AI-assisted coding is Godot! It has plain text scene files, and Opus does a half decent…
You're missing that an AI ban is actually just a poor quality AI ban. No one can tell if you used AI in a quality way and write the description in quality English. All this ban does is filter out the worst slop that would never have worked. People can and will still submit quality PRs that used AI, but no one will know it used AI, because the author was conscientious.
I don't know, once you ban AI-assisted coding outright, it's much higher likelihood this ban will cause the Godot team to spend time and energy being AI detectives, especially if they don't agree with the intent of the contribution.
Re: Godot will no longer accept AI-authored code contributions
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I personally wouldn't care if it was AI-generated or not, as long as the content fit the latter category. The problem is that a lot of AI contributions are lazily produced without review. Those that have been properly reviewed for correctness (tested to ensure actually working with no obvious undesirable side effects, tweaked where needed to be readable and understandable, fitting the other guidelines of the projec…
> The problem is that a lot of AI contributions are lazily produced without review. That sounds like a contributor problem. Not an AI problem. I still don't understand a "no AI" policy whose only purpose is to weed out bad PRs. You should be weeding out bad PR's regardless of their source. I don't see why treating a purely human-authored, but bad, piece of code should be treated any differently than an AI-authored on…
It’s just a social thing. Two identically bad submissions have different social contexts.